Game 459 - Dallas Mavericks at Atlanta Hawks

December 23 at Philips Arena in Atlanta, GA
Fox Sports Southeast

Some really good individual performances in this one, a 112-107 Hawks' victory, but none better than Dennis Schroder.

The Atlanta guard scored 33 points, 29 of which came in the second half, including a long, go-ahead three with 1:21 to play. Schroder also had seven assists a night after sitting out a loss to Oklahoma City with an ankle injury.

J.J. Barea was outstanding as well off the Dallas bench. The diminutive guard was by far the Mavericks' best guard, handing out 12 assists to go along with 15 points in 29 minutes.

* Ersan Ilyasova added 21 points on 7-of-9 shooting for Atlanta, while Harrison Barnes scored 22 (10-of-21) for the Mavericks.

Game 408 - Atlanta Hawks at Philadelphia 76ers

November 1 at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA
Fox Sports Southeast

Philadelphia is a strange word to say out loud and to type. Let's just start there.

As for the game, the 76ers ended a long losing streak in the series - seven straight, including four in a row at home - winning 119-109.

The duo of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons are the main reason why I think the 76ers could be a team that gets to a top-4 spot in the East this season and each was excellent in this one. Embiid had 21 points, 12 rebounds and six assists, while Simmons just missed a triple-double with 19 points, 13 rebounds and nine assists.

Robert Covington also hit six three-pointers on his way to a team-high 22 points.

Dennis Schroder is Atlanta's best player by a large margin and the point guard led the way with 25 points on 10-of-17 shooting to go along with six assists. But the Hawks, who lost their seventh straight after winning on opening night, have very little besides Schroder. Taurean Prince, in his second year out of Baylor, had 17 points and 11 rebounds, but he made just 6-of-17 shots, and the third option Wednesday was reserve Luke Babbitt (16 points, 7-of-12 from the field).

It could be a really long season for Atlanta.

Game 407 - Denver Nuggets at Atlanta Hawks

October 27 at Philips Arena in Atlanta, GA
Fox Sports 1

Game 290 - Denver Nuggets at Atlanta Hawks

February 8 at Philips Arena in Atlanta, GA
Fox Sports Southeast

Basketball, especially at the professional level, is a fast game and sometimes what you remember seeing isn't always reflected in the final box score. That was not the case on Wednesday. What I saw was Denver chucking up an insane amount of 3-pointers and not making nearly enough and as we check the final statistics it looks like the Nuggets were a horrid 13-for-44 from three-point range*.

To be fair to the rest of the team, Will Barton by himself was 0-for-9 from behind the arc. Barton actually had a nice night aside from that, contributing seven assists and one turnover in 38 minutes, but the Hawks were a bit too much in a 117-106 win.

Denver, which lost for the fifth consecutive time at Philips, got to within 109-105 on a Barton-assisted Gary Harris dunk, but scored just one more point over the final three minutes.

The hosts had seven in double figures, led by Dennis Schroder's 24-point, 10-assist night.


* I checked basketball-reference.com's play index to see how often teams have attempted 44 or more threes in a game in 2016-17 and Houston has done it a ridiculous 13 times while the remainder of the league, which now includes Denver, has reached that mark a combined 10 times. Also interesting is that both Houston (38-17) and Denver (23-29) ended the evening with identical 36.3 percent shooting from three.